Things have happened once again, and once again, these things 
have thrown a wrench into the works.  
	I woke up the last morning in the plaid shadow with a grand idea 
in my head of writing a spell that would make the Talking Bones replay 
ghost images of events in any shadow...  This plan was flawed from the 
start, as Mother and Sandr told me...  I need to be able to incorporate 
Pattern into a spell, which would involve much greater knowledge of the 
Pattern than I have now.  I have decided that this knowledge would serve 
me well in a variety of ways, not the least of which is finding my 
father. Of more immediate concern, however, is the matter of these 
attacks from Chaos.  At this point, I want nothing more than to track 
down the sorceror who has been harrassing Sandr...  Track him down and 
take off his head.  Maybe boil his brains, though from what Sandr told us 
(grudgingly, mistrustfully, but he told us!) I could not hope to fight him 
magically.  It will take me some time to learn how to use the Pattern in 
a fashion that will facilitate this, so I am in no way counting on this.  
I hope to find this Chaosite and cleave him in half long before I have 
mastered the event-resonance spell.
	Yesterday I came down and sat in the Pattern room for a long 
while, plotting my course of study, thinking things through.  My first 
notion is to practice with Sequence, tracing the Pattern in the air with 
the tip of the sword, and eventually get very fast at this.  In 
conjunction with this, I will draw it many times, walk it frequently, 
perhaps plant a scale replica of it in the garden, and eventually 
inscribe it on different geometric planes-- the first of this would be to 
inscribe it on sphere... Specifically, the ball of a mace.  As soon as I 
finish writing, I will continue cleaving the spikes off this mace.  There 
are only a few left.  I shall be done before dinner, and then I will go 
find Sandr and begin making plans.
	Which comes to last night.  I had decided to make one last wild 
night before I settle down to study and plot.  So, I planned a Wild Hunt, 
that I invited everyone to before I learned of the latest incedent 
between Sandr and the Chaos-scum.  Bleys, Julian, Caine, Kalyn and others 
had agreed to hunt with me before Sandr came in and the events of his day 
were revealed, and though I supposed I could have let them hunt without 
me, I was most loathe to give up one last good time before I settle down 
to work.  I stayed through the conference between Random, Gerard, Kalyn, 
Sandr, Ulysses and Jubal, for I was very concerned about the boy.  He 
looks much like a young Senlin must have, and this intrigues me and makes 
me care what happens to him more than any of my other cousins.  I had not 
made this connection between the two sorcerers until today...  The 
thought of attempting to lock Sandr inside a tree for a week makes me 
smile-- for one thing, it would be ME who ended up inside the tree...
We all talked and speculated, but it came to nought.  I thought I had a 
good guess in Sandr's amulet, but it survived Bleys' checking.  I was 
extremely concerned for a while that it might be one of the elder 
Amberites... Though I don't know WHO!  It was just a fleeting intuition 
that came and went.  I do not side with Lord Uncle King Random in casting 
doubt on the character of Cameron.  No one trusts him-- which is exactly 
why he's not suspect!  NO ONE trusts him ANYWHERE.  Hmph.  I know the 
feeling.  No one ever trusts my judgement, and it's usually just fine.
	Anyhow, I went on the hunt, though I had to fight Julian to lead 
it.  If it was Julian on any other horse, I might have led well, but it 
was Julian and Morganstern.  We swooped down on Cameron in the outskirts 
of Faerie, and Caine went to ask him to join us.  We rode through the 
night, and I used the mace and Sequence alternately.  I liked the mace 
quite a bit...  I met up with a few Elizabeth shadows, and it was fun to 
hunt with them, though it was kind of bittersweet in its way...  As dawn 
came, we crashed a tavern-- literally! --Morganstern has more power than 
a tank-- but managed to stop at another.  I drank with the Hunt for a few 
hours, but decided to head back to Amber and begin with the Pattern 
before the day got any later.  Drinking with Uncle Bleys is fun, but I 
had wanted the thrill of the hunt, not the thrill of the hangover to 
start me off on my new studies.  
	So, I've been alternately cleaving spikes off the mace with 
Sequence, as sort of a test in precision, and studying the Pattern. When 
I am done, I will walk it and transport to the armory in order to get 
something to polish up a scratch on the mace, head to dinner, and then go 
find Sandr and Ulysses.  Provision must be made.